


So I Stayed In The Darkness With You

by AraceliL



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Abstract, Gen, Headcanon, Speculation, seperate identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5071216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraceliL/pseuds/AraceliL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheik was an alter ego: an identity for protection, for purpose, a tool and nothing more; a separate identity that suddenly held many more secrets than her other half realized. Some headcanon on the idea of Zelda and Sheik separating to become separate people completely!</p>
            </blockquote>





	So I Stayed In The Darkness With You

I used to be her, you know.

You can watch her. Watch her dance, watch her gossamer strand whirl her away in a haze of beauty. Watch her silken hair shimmer as she moves her neck like a viper. Watch her hands flow as she transforms them to golden birds.

But don't watch too long, for you'll be blind.

You can listen to her. Listen to her trilling voice, to the whispered riddles stolen from my thoughts. Listen to her quiet steps, her gentle heartbeat. Listen to the heartbeat, the stealth that used to be from my steps.

But don't listen too long, for you'll be deaf.

If she is the sun, doesn't that make me the moon? I am, after all, her opposite in every single aspect, as you told me. You told me, kissed me, than ran to her.

And I hate you so desperately, I hate you so intensely for it. How could you love me and love her? That's what drove us apart, isn't it? I'm simply trying to make sense of it all...all I know for sure is the hate I bear in my quiet heart for what she did to me. To us.

If she is the sun, doesn't that make me the moon?

Because, my dearest fool, my lovely cup, I am not the moon. Silent as I am, I do not shine. Light as I am, I am not white. Powerful as I am, I am not a maiden.

I stayed in the darkness with you.

I am the twilight, lost in the shadow of her majesty, of your naive heart.

But was I not the one that led you? That watched you and fed you? Am I not the one that held you when you were hurt? Was I not the one that inspired you to become the hero you are and were destined to be? We are inseparable through the goddesses, through the fate they wove. You need me quite like I need you.

Yet something happened that even the creators were ill prepared for.

But then, isn't it the truth of every story that great power leads to unexpected consequences?

 

We used to be one.

You remember when you discovered who I was.

Your beautiful, beautiful eyes lit with the power of the sun.

It...infected me.

You kissed me, you wrapped your arms around me, you pulled my hair from its braid.

You laid me down, you looked at me with the sun.

You pulled my clothes away, kissed me everywhere, made me blush and moan without understanding anything.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten, feeling you.

 

* * *

 

We used to be one. I – we – changed at will. When you needed me, needed my stealth and secrecy and power, I was the ninja. When you needed the ruler, the beautiful, the gentle, the influential, I was the princess. I was always the princess in my heart, a princess with great power. But I never expected my guise would become my other identity.

She was bolder than I. She could do what I could not. She was mysterious, magical even. Tongued in riddles, clothed in silence, she could be free, a touch on the cheek. She could kiss him. I could not.

I saw the divide. I did little to change it. I loved being her, being this goddess of power and intrigue. Soon I began to think differently as one or the other. Soon, as the graceful, I forgot the mysterious. Soon, as silence I forgot the powerful.

But then – he saw through. He unmasked me, the cowl limp in his hand, and called me by my other name.

To which girl did that name belong?

But he was so happy – there was so much sunlight in his eyes – I didn't say no, I let him kiss me, call me by that other name – who cared? I had him. I had him, at last.

And afterward – I was a princess. And I was angry. Jealous, even. Of myself?

It was night. I was alone, wrapped in tight clothes with a silk scarf around my arms. I made my way into the forest, careful to avoid the path of the guards. A part of me couldn't remember where I was going, but my feet seemed to. I let them lead me forward, feeling bewildered, but ignoring it.

The moon shone sadly in a blanketed sky. Still, it touched the tops of the trees, flickering on me now and again, a luminescent, wandering soul with nothing but her thoughts.

As I continued further, I felt the life respond. It changed around my purposed soles, glowing and waking. I thought perhaps this is why I came, to feel Farore's presence. The trees lit with vines like veins, pulsing and emitting a soft light onto my eyes. On the bushes, their leaves changed color, charging through their life cycle until my bare feet cracked with every step. I smiled faintly, but the life did little to enlighten me.

Then, as I crunched leaves under my toes, I saw branches heavy with leaves begin to shake. I stared at it, transfixed at the sight, wondering what could be behind that curtain. Cautious I went forward, and spread the leaves with my cold, trembling hands.

Instantly the life went dark. Nothing shone around me, and I went blindly forward, thinking only to get out. I felt some terrible fate would befall me if I overstayed my due with Farore, the wretched goddess.

Wretched. A goddess quite like the one I transformed into...

The other girl. Not me.

Then – light – the leaves flew up around me, a wind strong enough to push me to the ground. I turned over, too petrified to scream, and watched as the moon went black. I tried to crawl, tried to move, but I felt tied to the ground.

Then – a heartbeat.

I cried to it, yelled. Was it my own? But it could not be...I was never so bold. It was not me.

I had to answer it. I needed the light.

No. I needed the dark.

The heartbeat. The heartbeat. Increasing.

I can't die here, I can't be left here –

The dark is safe, is where the silence and stealth lurk. Mystery and intrigue –

WHO ARE YOU?!

I felt a great force pull my body forward. Intense pain – numbness – I was nothing but a deaf mute, a victim, a soul sucked into oblivion. I burst, stars and moon with me, and then I felt the force lift from me at though it had been prone on top of me.

Sound rushed back. The leaves swirled, snapping, with the heartbeat always louder and louder, the wind pushing me around, beating me like a toy – flowed through my person.

I began to glow.

I was the sun.

I saw everything now, from the mountains in the distance to the stars next to me. My eyesight was a hawk's, and I felt as powerful as a giant, as a goddess. I was invincible! I was...free?

And I looked over myself, and something caught my gaze.

Across from me, almost transparent, was a girl, lying on her back, her skinny body clothed in black. Her eyes were closed, her coral lips moving faintly, her tiny chest moving up and down. Her slender legs moved, her arms felt herself, and as I watched she rose, hair cascading off her body, and she breathed deeply. Her head turned to face me.

Blood-red eyes pierced my illuminated eyes.

Sheik.

 

* * *

 

I was free at last. Free from that horrible body, from the responsibilities of my other half...but there she was, staring at me, bright as the sun. I looked at my body – my beautiful, free body – and gasped as I saw the light shining through me. What was she? What was she doing to me?

I lunged at her, knocking her onto her back, her neck in my hands and her shoulder under my foot.

_Finally_.

She yelped, and I bared my teeth at her. I was an animal, a pure beast of anger and freedom, and I was going to rip her voice from her throat, her stupid, foolish thoughts from her brain, the light from her soul –

"You're evil!" she spit at me, defiance that was my own, of my side, on the face we both shared. "You're Sheik, the evil one, the sheikah I never meant to become. Away from me, demon! I'm pure now."

Confidence. I tightened my grip on her throat.

Her light began to fade. Then –

A sound. The heartbeat. It was closer...it was Link.

He called her name. We both froze.

We heard him, coming nearer.

I was gripped with the icy hand of fear. He wouldn't recognize me. She was pure. He would never take me, this beast of a human, this part demon.

The light pushed me off of her in my terror, gathering her rays of skirts. She looked at me, grinned. She knew exactly what I did.

"You'll always be in my shadow, Sheik." She came closer, a look of sadness in those blinding eyes. "In the shadow of my heart, of my purity. You're nothing but an abomination of wickedness. You'll die here without anyone to take you."

"I won't be." I felt blood rushing to my head. Were my eyes red with the haze I saw? I snarled at her. She laughed, a flitting giggle that turned into a dagger, piercing me through the heart.

"We're opposites. You can never be."

I met her eyes, and felt the very thing that pulled me out, away from her rising up into my soul. She was blinded by her own radiance.

"Light can never exist without the dark."

She scowled, and we heard the heartbeat coming closer. She turned to go, then spared me a final look. Was she really leaving me so unceremoniously? So already freed of the evil that was my soul?

I gave her one last parting warning:

"I have to exist. I am the shadow of your heart...and if you want to be what you truly are, darkness I will become.

**Author's Note:**

> So hopefully my formatting stays this time, and doesn't fuck up like it tends to do on me. I hoped you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!


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